Abrasion
by Snakebyte42
Summary: The Will of Fire has guttered and blown out. In Konohagakure, boys are turned into weapons rather than men, but an important fact has been forgotten; the thing to remember about swords is that the best ones wield themselves.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Deep inside the people's shattered hope lived the shadow of a man. He was marked by that man's sin, that man's triumph, forever bound by blood and pride and shame. He saw through eyes not his alone a world both his and not. His world was gone. His home died with the passing of a shadow, the breaking of a heart, the damning of a child. Now the boy had only crimson darkness to keep him whole, but he did not despair. He had a secret, precious hope. One day, his father would come to bring him back into the light.

His father was the greatest man that ever lived.

* * *

><p>For a long time, Kyoji rarely smiled. There was a hardness to his expression, a twitch of musculature that hinted at something that he would never let himself forget. It was talked about from time to time, mused on by co-workers far from his ears. It was odd enough that he was there to begin with, knowing who he was, but this? That girl had died, it was true, and the death of loved ones can certainly do strange things to even most stalwart of men, but... He was private, even at the best of times, and all but the most desperate gossip will give up before too long if no juicy new morsels come to light. Life went on, for most.<p>

Today, his mood was infectious. He was grinning so widely that people who had never seen him before and would never see him again were having a better day because of it. People were beginning to wonder if he knew something they didn't; morale hadn't been particularly high since the incursions from Iwa began several weeks ago. No one wanted another war, but Kyoji, like almost everyone else he knew, was more than damn willing to fight if need be. Those Rock bastards wouldn't find the Leaf an easy target, not like they did before. Konoha had purged all their weakness in years past and, for the first time in a long time, become something to be proud of. Now, Kyoji was on his way to meet with the man responsible for it all... the Godaime Hokage.

He rapped lightly at the door, and was beckoned inside; the Godaime stood to greet him, still haunted by the echoes of old wounds. He would never understand how people could look at this man and not see a hero, but like all great men there were those who tried. Kyoji took a seat and waited patiently, trying to be unobtrusive. The office of the Hokage was a busy one even when things were going well, and he wouldn't begrudge the man the few minutes he needed to shift his focus from whatever had been at hand.

"There are still those," he began, "who say that I must make this village my family, must hold everyone within my heart. I do not. A soldier has no need of family. You are not my brother, nor are you my son. You are simply a weapon, to be used as I see fit." The older man paused, searching for any hint of hesitance or doubt on Kyoji's face, and found nothing but loyalty.

"My sword is yours, Hokage-sama," Kyoji replied, lowering his head respectfully.

"And for that you should be commended, though if I were to personally commend everyone deserving, I would have time for little else." He paused, allowing a touch of pride to cross his features before deadening them once more. "That is not why you are here. I called you here to discuss those who _you_ hold within your heart."

For the tiniest of moments, Kyoji's face blanched, his eyes widening in the split second before he brought himself under control, adopting a slightly confused expression. "I'm not sure I understand..." he responded, trailing off as the Godaime looked at him questioningly. Wordlessly, he passed Kyoji a file containing surveillance of the area around the village. This time, his eyes really did widen, face draining of all color. "But..." he said after a few seconds of silence, his voice shaky. "I th-thought that..."

"Consider this a gift," the Hokage interrupted, smiling politely and waving off his every attempt to apologize as he hurriedly made his way out of the room. The smile lingered on the Hokage's face for some time as he stared at the open doorway, picturing a face that he didn't need to turn around to see with perfect clarity.

_What would you think of me now, old friend?_

* * *

><p>There was a sharp knock from the door downstairs. The boy tensed up instantly, his hand hovering above his desk, frozen in the midst of deft movement. He held himself that way for several seconds, listening. His focus had been shattered, probably permanently, but maybe whoever the hell it was would leave him the hell alone so that he could just<em>—<em>

No. There it was again.

Damn.

He gave it one more thumping barrage before looking up from his diagram-covered workspace. He let out a long sigh. It was all politics, like every other damn thing he'd been thrust into over the last couple of years. He hated having to play these games. Couldn't they just let him work in peace?

He groaned, swinging his leg up off the desk and on to the floor, and got up to walk downstairs. He limped a little. They were still banging away.

He and his family had never been very popular or well-accepted, and while this new regime's show of 'refusing to make the mistakes of generations past' and 'casting off the shadows of superstition and shackles of tradition to find advantages previously neglected' were certainly welcomed, he knew that they were, as always, on thin ice. No matter what lip service they were given, no matter what public proclamations were made, they had no real power. He had no sway with anyone when the spotlights were off, and had no choice but to put up with things like this. They had to make sure he knew his place.

He rubbed his temples, staving off the anticipated headache. It was times like these that he missed having his father around... but that felt wrong as soon as he thought it. He missed them _always_. They felt like a hole in him, and ignoring them didn't make it go away. It just made him cold. It was childlike to blame them for this, even though this job was never supposed to fall to him, even though he hated it... It was _his_, now.

So when they came to his home, when those pink-eyed bastards sat on his damn doorstep and quietly denounced everything he and his family had ever worked for, he was going to give them hell. Countless voices spoke through him, or he for them, and he'd damn well do them proud.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Yeah, yeah, who is i—the _fuck_ do you want?"

In front of him, instead of the trio of arrogant jerks he was expecting, was a face he knew all too well. Shorter than him, hair darker and cleaner than his, face, for once, not smiling; a face he had hoped he'd never see again. Without even thinking, his own face twisted in anger.

"I TOLD you what I'd do the next time I—"

"Kaz."

"—fuck is WRONG with you, how many times do—"

"Kaz."

"—take to RAM it into your stupid FUCKING head that—"

"**Kaz.**"

"WHAT_?_!"

They were silent, just for a moment, while the boy handed him a file.

"She's alive."

* * *

><p>Out on the edge of the world there is an old soldier that never stopped fighting. The wars that bred him, that honed him, had long since passed, but there is always idle work for devil's hands. He was accustomed to war, to the spoils of war, to taking what was rightfully his even when the heat of battle chilled to dry ash. His eyes looked with hunger and his laughter spoke of rot; to him the world was his to take, to play with, to make suffer.<p>

He was a collector, in a sense. He kept toys in his house at the edge of the world. In the cellar. In cages. Sometimes they screamed. But this time, when he went to play with his old toy, his favorite toy—for it had been a long day and he always saved the best for last—the cage stood open, ravaged and reclaimed by nature.

She was gone.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** So this is the first bit of the Naruto story that's been kicking around in my brain for about a year. I've rewritten and scrapped parts of it god knows how many times, but there are too many concepts I like in it to ditch it completely. It's a 'for want of a nail' story, in a sense, but you have to look quite a damn ways back to find the nail, and I'm not planning on spelling it out for you any time soon. I'm logically diverging from the series, though, not ignoring it. It's, obviously, written in a much more traditional style than my Digimon story, and deals with a lot of original characters and ideas, but I have major plans for a good bit of canon, some of which can be seen here if you look closely enough. If all goes well with this particular direction, the next chapter should follow shortly. If not... Well, there's always the Digimon story.

As always, feedback's welcome, though plot-heavy questions may not be answered. We can just call this the 'cryptic bitch clause' from here on out.


	2. Chapter 2

Her hand kept forgetting how to move. She would go to brush the hair from her face—it was cold, and she couldn't see—but though her muscles would tense and maybe a finger would twitch, her hand remained at her side. After another step or four it would happen again, and then she'd forget for a while.

The sky was full of white wet fluff that stuck to her clothes and melted on her skin, plastering her hair to her face. Her hand twitched, moving haltingly, but faltered around her waistline. Water ran down her cheeks, pooling on the ground below. She was forgetting a lot of things.

She took another step, or two, or five. Everything was cold. The wind was everywhere. She'd never heard it scream like this before. It was like it was making words, whispering and wailing a message just for her.

_You are weak,_ it said. _You are small._

_You are nothing,_ said the sky. _Relent._

_All comes back to me,_ said the ground.

_Die,_ said the cold.

She took another step or three, or six, or nine. She knew where she was going. She'd get there, too, in another step or twelve, even if she couldn't see anything, even if she didn't know where she was at all. She'd earned a better death than this. Something with far too many swords, for preference, or at least an audience. Make a performance of it, take out an entire damn army, that was how she wanted to go. Not like this, not in the cold, not in a cage, and not alone. Never alone.

She almost didn't realize when she hit a wall. The stone was warm. There was a hole in the wall that blew out heat as well as air. She collapsed and it was all she could do to sit there and let it warm her, for a time.

She couldn't rest, not yet, not even if she tried. It wasn't done. She was closer than she'd ever been, as close as she should have been years ago, but she couldn't stop now. She'd rather die than have it all be for nothing. She got up slowly, the last in a long line of hard tasks and god did it hurt but she wasn't dead. She had a job to do. The scars would have to wait.

She wondered what they saw when they looked at her. She got more than enough stares as she walked along the city's stone walls; out of windows, from groggy shopkeepers waiting for that day's dose of coffee to bring the world into focus. She was glad she didn't know what she looked like. She didn't even know how much of the blood was hers.

In any city, any town, there are people who will provide for those in need when given the right incentives. It felt almost too good to be the one holding the blade again. They didn't even blink when she asked for a change of clothes and were only too happy when she suggested they leave for a while; the man even locked the door on the way out.

She drew a bath and stepped out of what remained of her clothes; the water masked the sounds she made. She was covered in old wounds, some she didn't even know she had, and she was so thin. It hurt to look at herself. It felt like it was someone else's body, and filled her with disgust and shame that it was her who had let this happen, her who had grown so weak, but the water was warm and safe. It took even that pain away.

The sun slipped over the horizon as she lay there, waiting for the water to cool. When she stepped out shivering into the bitter dawn light that streamed through the small window, she almost felt human again. The new clothes were clean and smelled of fabric and flowers. They didn't stick to her, weren't thick with dirt and sweat and god knows what else. They didn't smell of fear.

She carefully took a few things from the pile of old clothes and slipped them into pockets. She couldn't bring herself to touch them any more than that. She'd have watched them burn if fire didn't make one such an unforgivably bad houseguest. She left them there, closing the front door behind her, knowing as she did that she would never come back; not to the house, not to the city, not even to this part of the country if she could help it. But she couldn't leave yet. She still had a job to do.

She walked through the city openly, barely attracting the occasional glance, scanning the streets and stalls for little things, things that they hoped few other people would notice. A hand signal or coded markings, a colored scarf or a—

Ah. Him. She knew him. Not well, but... She walked closely, greeting him with a smile that was as fake as his merchandise. He grinned back for a moment—and her hand slipped behind him, dropping something into a pouch worn at his belt—but then his face went slack with shock. He called out after her, but she had already turned, was already leaving him and this place behind. Her job was done. She was going home. Her life was hers again, for a time.

But time passes.

* * *

><p>He was glad that no one else could see him. He couldn't put on the face anymore, not even for himself, not right now. There was only room in his thoughts for her. He could remember the last time he saw her, but that was nothing special, just a glimpse of her hair as she passed out of sight. It didn't matter, though. He could remember every time he saw her.<p>

His father had taught him that sometimes what a person presents to the world—his actions, his words, the feelings he allows himself to show—are the only weapons he has. He tried for a while, he really did, but now it was too much. He'd mourned because it was expected of him and then cheered up because that's what people do, they get over things and move on, but he had never truly felt the kind of grief that he'd seen tear so many others apart.

If he ever told anyone that, they'd say he never loved her, but they just didn't understand. He could sense the feeling, sometimes, accreting in the corners of his psyche. He could submerse himself in it, if he wanted to. He could lose himself. It would consume him, if he let it. The depth of what he felt for her would roll over him in a wave and leave him some pathetic mewling broken thing smashed against the rocky shores of a life without her in it. He'd never do it, could never be that selfish. What use was he to anyone like that?

People were looking at him, but he didn't care. He was allowed one night, right? He knew it would be a mistake if any of it got back to his father, but he didn't care. He couldn't care. Not tonight. His eyes flickered to Kazuo for a moment, standing on the other side of the road, but the other boy was looking at the sky and watching the sun set, ignoring him. That's all he ever did, these days.

Kyoji shook his head and started slowly pacing back and forth, his hand hovering beside his sword, though danger was far from his thoughts. The sword didn't mean that, to him. The blood, the masks, all of that came later. In the beginning, it was just an escape, an excuse to get out of that house because he couldn't just sit in that place, not then and not now. So many things were different now, but not that. It was just a different kind of pain. It was always funny to him how many people thought his own successes were because of his father's actions rather than in spite of them.

The truth was, the sword just reminded him of her. He had it with him when he first saw her, just far enough away from his house that he could start to think again. She was trying to master something at the very edge of that training area, almost in the forest. He didn't know what; he'd never seen her or anyone like her in his life, but even a deaf person would have had a hard time missing her frustration.

He went over to... introduce himself? To try to help somehow? He wasn't sure. It was years ago, now, but he knew they ended up fighting. Maybe she attacked him out of sheer rage or maybe he offered to spar, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was how it felt, how she felt. He could still feel echoes of the impact of her blades, travelling up his forearm. He fought harder than he'd ever fought before, and for the first time he forgot about everything—the life he'd have to go back to, the man waiting for him, all of it. There was only the fight.

And the girl.

Even if she hadn't turned out to be alive, if he wasn't expecting to see her again before the night was done, that was how he would remember her. Not as sadness, but as the ringing of steel, as hot pain shooting through his muscles, as the thing that took his breath away. She made nothing else matter, and that meant more to him than anything.

And there she was.

He couldn't breathe.

She looked startled, but he couldn't imagine why. Did she think they wouldn't be there? That he would ever let her go?

For a moment, he didn't know what to do or say.

Was she crying?

Why was...

"...I'm home. I'm here, I'm really..." she looked up at him, eyes glistening, staring right into his eyes. "Why didn't you come for me?"

And in that moment he thought his heart would burst.

"You... died. They told us you died. There wasn't a body, but when is there_?_! We buried you, we carved your name in stone, we—" he could have kept talking, could have let his lips keep spilling out words until something, anything, filled the hole he could see in her and made it right again, but the look on her face made him stop. He watched her eyes. He was hoping for understanding, for acceptance, for some way to make this horror go away, but he knew he'd likely see rage, or worse, betrayal. He wasn't expecting fear. Everything but the fear had drained out of her, and there wasn't even much of that left. She looked beaten, and she was looking at the sky.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, staring upwards. "I'll do better next time." She brought a ragged sleeve to her face, coughing or choking for a second, and began to wipe her tears away. "It's so hard to remember, to keep things straight when you... but you said not to make excuses." She stood still for several long seconds, as if waiting for something.

He didn't know why, but it was Kazuo, not her, that got the focus of his attention. Some part of his mind still expected him to have answers, back from the days when they exchanged more than angry looks, when they depended on eachother. But the other boy only watched her. He even looked calm.

"Well_?_!" she fell to her knees, her voice suddenly shrill. "I get it, okay? I _know_, just turn it off. I've learned my lesson. What are you _waiting_ for?" Her eyes roamed over the two of them once more and then bowed her head, tears flowing freely. "Looking at them _hurts_. Is what what you want from me? Do you want me to say it? Fine. None... of this... is real."

"Let it end."

* * *

><p>So many people think they know who they are. Their fathers, their mothers, their nations, their loyalties... they build themselves from history, placing date upon date upon story to form a pillar of concrete recollection. Their lives are bricks on a foundation of ancestors, a wall of humanity that stretches back to mud huts and sharpened bone.<p>

They feel so proud, knowing who they are. It gives their little lives such glory. They would know too, if it were not inconvenient, were it not too troublesome to recall, that history has always belonged to the victors. It takes nothing at all for a little lie, a saving of face, a whitewashing of pages to get rid of all that pesky blood to become enduring truth, cementing itself in the identity of generations to come.

The Senju were among the strong, and that should never be denied. They forged the first village, tamed the beasts; for good or ill, they reshaped the world. Their values and influence still spread even further than their forests, with Konohagakure no Sato hidden at the heart of it all, a jewel in the midst of their self-proclaimed perfection. But their power, their "Will of Fire", that thing that makes them strong is nothing but a farce.

They know nothing of who they are, not anymore. They build their lives in thin air, suspended in a sea of lies and deified figures, scraps of truth and portrait souls. They skate on a veneer of textbook pride. They forget their monuments are stone, their forest a grown thing rooting through pebbles to stay alive. Konoha is a village built on rock, around mountains, riddled with caves.

It will belong to rock again.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** It seems I didn't actually put this in the last note, but the first chapter that I posted wasn't complete, in the way I originally envisioned it. I posted it more as a placeholder and as a motivation to write more and to stay with this revision than for it to be read. It was, originally, more like the first half of the first chapter, not a thing in and of itself.

Well, this doesn't complete that section either.

My original draft called for all but the very last section of Chapter 1, a much shortened version of the first section of this, along with the second more or less as it is now, followed by a scene that's now going to take place in chapter three, and then, finally, what was originally supposed to end this chapter but didn't, because I ended up going somewhere else entirely.

So if this seems all over the place and incoherent, it's because it was supposed to be read as part of a greater whole, within the even greater whole of the story itself. I'm hoping Chapter 3, whenever I end up writing it, will tie things together the way they should be, and then go on forward with shit that hasn't been in my head in some form since 2009.

Oh, and this sure as hell wasn't supposed to take as long as it did, either. I have no excuses there, but I'm so happy that I was finally able to get this out of my brain that I don't even care. I'm not dead, though. I'm just slow and overly critical.

**~06/03/12**


	3. Chapter 3

"What did you...?"

"What? I didn't d—"

"You have to get—"

"Look, it's just not g—"

"—ll of you get ba—"

"She's one of—"

"—ckly, befo—"

"Wait, what's—"

"On three, together an—"

"—ere are you t—"

"Hurry—!"

"—THE FUCK ARE YOU TAKING HER?!"

His shout rang out through the thick night air, causing absolutely nothing at all. Echoes of it chased after the team of paramedics as they took the girl of his dreams away from him again. He realized he was shaking. He realized his fists hurt, and he was bleeding from where his chattering teeth had bit through his lips.

He realized there was a hand on his shoulder.

"Stop. Let them go." They were the first words the other boy had spoken all night. He took a couple of steps forward and turned to look at Kyoji with a strange expression on his face. It was almost a smile.

"She'll be fine."

* * *

><p>She slipped painlessly into dream.<p>

In her mind's eye she saw mountains against a red and glowing sky. Cold pine needles pricked her skin as she ran; she could barely feel her feet in the quickly-melting snow. This was the ninth time she had escaped. Last time, she had barely felt the beginning of winter's touch. Now it chilled her to the bone.

He was coming. He was always coming, stalking her sideways through dreamscapes, the sound of his footsteps breaking her world. This time, she had gotten far, as far as the little burbling creek miles south of the hideaway, but this was a dream and dreams do not have to play out as life once did.

This time he was waiting for her. This time he was angry. This time he made her regret trying to get away. He made her regret living.

Sometimes he let her go. Sometimes everything would work, she would be cleverer and faster than everyone else and the smart strong girl would go free, back to her friends, back to her village, back to her master—so that she would, just for a moment, rejoice. Then the walls would cave in and spiral away into blackness, or he would boil out of her father in a cloud of insects and blood, or she would simply wake up and be back in her cage like nothing had changed.

But there was a part of her he could never quite destroy, something he couldn't warp or steal or poison. The core of her was sinuous, it twined and swayed and something dark and unseen curled about its roots. He didn't understand—would never understand—that he couldn't take her over because she was already taken, already made over in another's image, in beautiful coiled perfection. He had wormed his way inside her soul but he couldn't have it. It wasn't hers to give.

She sold it long ago, and treasures what she was granted in return.

* * *

><p>She looked so tired, lying there, tiny and scarred. He couldn't see much of her skin, only her hands, face, and part of an arm, but that was enough to paint the kind of picture a person would rather die than look at twice. The rest of her was hidden under crisp white sheets only beginning to darken with grime, mercifully leaving him blind. It was so easy to pity her.<p>

It was harder to stop.

They'd tried to stop him coming. It was almost _cute_, how they tried to bar his way; like they didn't know who he was, didn't know what he could do to them, to their families, to their children. He wondered who paid them off.

It didn't matter. The one thing he wasn't short on were enemies.

He sighed, closing the door behind him quietly and taking a seat in the uncomfortable wooden chair barely wedged between the doorway and the end table, and hung his head in his hands.

It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be him here. He shouldn't be the one doing this, but Kyoji... he'd never understand, never accept it no matter how much proof the boy piled before him. It was always like this, anyway; he'd come to accept it as a part of his life. Atokane Kazuo, youngest clan leader in years, stepping into the shoes of corpses while they're still warm.

Messes like this were always his to sort out, even though he hated it, even though he wanted nothing, absolutely nothing in the world more than to have the right people back, to go back to laughing and playing with sharp toys and telling the whole world how many wonderfully new and exciting ways there were for it to fuck right off. But he couldn't. If he did, no one else would fix things. Not even this. Not even her.

As he thought of it, as he thought of what this would do to the person who, even though he hadn't shown it for years, was his dearest, oldest friend, his heart hardened again. Anger sketched itself across his face and shot out with every breath. He didn't let people hurt his friends, even when the people doing the hurting were his friends—or were once, at least. It all seemed so long ago.

Suddenly he stood up, knocking the chair back against the wall, his muscles rigid with tension. He began to clap, slowly and methodically, because even when she was just sticking the knife in deeper, Keiko was something to be admired.

* * *

><p>"Well done. Well fucking done, you traitorous little bitch."<p>

She woke up with a grin. Her thoughts were still too clogged with the fuzz of sleep to work out what the man standing in her room was going on about—because of course there was more than one possibility. The way he was getting worked up was pretty cute, though. _God_ it'd been ages since she'd slept in a bed. Were they _always_ like this? How did she ever get _out_ of them?

Oh, yeah. Sometimes she didn't.

There were other things that were slow to come back, like how great pillows felt, and how complicated people could be. She should probably say something, she knew; work out whatever was bothering her old comrade, work out what she should do next, what mine she tripped over and what lie she could tell to make everything alright again. That was how friendships worked, right?

It all seemed like so much effort now.

"Thanks" was all she could think to say, and she couldn't keep from crooking a smile. She _was_ happy, truly, and it was too hard to hide it. Even if he hated her, even if he never wanted to see her again, at least he cared enough to come at all. She didn't know what he expected. Anger, fear? Remorse?

He stared at her for a while. His lips were like a line, pressed-together and white. He'd come here because he was stupid, because still, _still_ he was weak inside, sentimental even now, even after all the harm it did him. He expected more from her, thought that somewhere in her was the person she'd pretended to be, not just who she was. He looked for the mask and it was gone, crumpled on the floor of a bloody cage.

"I don't get it." His tone wasn't angry but wondrous, disbelieving. "After that whole performance, after what you did to him... How can you... How?" He was good with his hands, with his mind, with books and tools and scars. Sometimes the right words were beyond him.

She thought back, sifting through those unreal yellowing pages of thought, of the time before the cage, the time the before the man, the time of friendship and false faces and being loved for what she could never be again.

"It _was_ pretty good, wasn't it?" She chuckled. "Damn, and here I thought I was getting rusty." She sat up, the blankets falling down from her chest and arms. He tried to look away, but he couldn't, not in time. She saw the way his face twisted, his nostrils flared, the way his throat choked back bile.

It wasn't that any of her scars were particularly livid or fresh. It's that they never stopped. They went from one inch of flesh to the next. Methodical. Precise, except for when one cut across her other side, was too long or too short or ran against the grain, just to teach her spontaneity, just so she'd never know what came next.

"D-do you think that changes anything?!" He wanted to run to her, to kill himself, to turn back time. Anything to stop it, to make her what she was. But he couldn't. "You don't know. You don't KNOW." She opened her mouth and he could see her lazy smile, the condescension for his friend, for her supposed lover, in her eyes before she even spoke it. "**DON'T!**"

His shout echoed. "You don't understand what happened." They'd be coming soon; nurses, janitors, whoever else it reached. "The war didn't stop for you!" The goddamn Hokage himself could come in that stupid fucking hat and Kazuo wouldn't even look his way. "Do you think we just kept living the same stupid lives?"

He looked at her, actually looked at her, and didn't look away. "Did you even know my parents died?" There was real shock in her eyes. She sat up a little straighter. The glamor dropped.

"K-Kaz, I—"

"Shut it!" He _wasn't_ crying. Clan heads didn't. "There was—I don't know, faulty intel, a double-agent, _something._ Those Stone fucks hit the entire Kusa compound. It fell to me."

"So, what?" Her condescension was back, like it never left. "Little baby couldn't take the pressure?"

"No, I'm fucking fine." He looked at her with nothing but contempt. "The world moves. Life goes on. Shit happens." He clenched his teeth. "But not to him." The noises outside were getting louder. "I honour them by living. I do the best damn job I can every day and it's never enough but I get by. He can't do that for you. He stopped. For you. He can't see through you, the way I can, and none of this 'poor me' shit can—"

Her eyes flew open. "'Poor me?' You really have no fucking clue, do you?" She stepped out of bed, throwing the blanket to one side. Under it, she was wearing barely anything, but she held herself with utter confidence. The pattern of scars looked incomplete, like some kind of horrid masterpiece interrupted. Only a little over half of her was marred.

"I did it, you know." Her voice grew quieter as she grew closer to the door. "It—I ran into—It didn't_ go as planned_ but I did it. He's got it now. What he wanted from the start." She pressed forward until she was almost whispering, until he was backed against the wooden frame. "How many lives did 'poor me' save?" She looked down at herself in response to his body language, as if seeing herself for the first time, and took another step.

"What's wrong?" she breathed into his ear. "It's not like it'd be our first time. Don't you like the way I look?" He shuddered, pushing her back, and her fist slammed through the door, coming back covered in gore and clenching an Iwa headband. She dropped it, caressing his cheek with her red right hand.

"Look," Keiko whispered lovingly. "Now you can't even see the scars."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** So I did a thing. I'm not even sure what kind of thing I did. Oh God, what am I even doing. This is... a story? I think? Hi.

**~07/05/13.**


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